


soft breaths, beating heart

by Anonymous



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Arthur Morgan has TB but doesnt know it yet, Asphyxiation, Bottom Arthur, Chapter 6: Beaver Hollow (Red Dead Redemption 2), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Established Relationship, Hurt No Comfort, Internalized Victim Blaming, John marston (mentioned) - Freeform, M/M, Micah Bell (mentioned) - Freeform, Non-Consensual Violence, Strangulation, Van der linde gang (mentioned) - Freeform, Victim Blaming, dutch being a major asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 11:27:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He should hit Dutch, should push him off and get up on his feet again but he can’t find it in himself to raise his hand against the man that raised him, Dutch already believes him to be disloyal.Hurting him? Well, that would just be a nail in the coffin.And again, he should have known that this was something Dutch wanted when he called him into the tent. He lead him on, in a way he was just as much at fault as Dutch.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Dutch van der Linde
Comments: 26
Kudos: 151
Collections: Anonymous





	soft breaths, beating heart

**Author's Note:**

> one day i'll proof read this also in this Arthur has tb but haven't been diagnosed yet. John has been broken out from prison. sorry for writing this.
> 
> find a kind of inofficial prequel here; https://archiveofourown.org/works/22423294

It’s late in the night when he comes back, empty handed after a hunt, to camp. A whole day wasted and he didn’t manage to get anything, only animals he encountered seemed to be sick with barely any meat on their bones, their pelts practically useless. The only buck worth shooting he had scared away when accidentally stepping on a branch, and he still cursed himself for that. A rookie mistake, he blamed the fever for that. It had been a bad idea from start to go out hunting when feeling like he was about to keel over at any minute. 

“Arthur!” 

He sighs, and turns to walk towards Dutch, standing outside the tent of his. He wonders if Dutch had stayed up just to catch him when he got back. 

“What is it, Dutch?” He asks. 

“Don’t look so sour, boy,” Dutch says. “I just wanted to speak to you.” 

Dutch gestures towards the tent, and with another sigh Arthur enters it, Dutch closely following and closing the flap behind him. 

Arthur takes a seat at the bed and hopes that whatever Dutch wanted to talk about would be quick. 

“Have you been avoiding me, Arthur?” Dutch asks, and while his tone is cheerful like he’s joking, Arthur can hear the underlying accusation underneath, he sees it on Dutch face that he’s annoyed by it, and there is a suspicion to the tone too, the same sort of suspicion he heard when Dutch questioned Abigail about what happened after the Saint Denis robbery. Dutch hadn’t been the same, not since Blackwater, and Arthur knew that Dutch still held some resentment towards him for disobeying him and rescuing John from Sisika. Wanted it all to blow over completely before trying to connect with Dutch again. 

“Been busy,” he mutters. 

“You always seem to be nowadays,” Dutch replies. “Well, while you’ve been _busy,_ Micah and I have been looking for new leads to get out of this hellhole.” 

  
If Arthur had known that Dutch had called him into his tent to talk about the next score they were gonna do, he would have ignored him and gone to bed straight away. 

  
He was exhausted to the bone, had barely had the time to eat the last few days with the Pinkertons on their trail and rescuing John from prison. The past weeks had taken a toll on him. 

He stifles a cough, knows that Dutch will become even more annoyed if he knows that Arthur is coming down with a cold. He doesn’t have time to be sick. 

Point is, he was tired and all he wanted to do was to get some rest, not hear Dutch yapping about some train robbery Micah had scouted out. 

“-and it has been rough for all of us, son, but we will be back at our feet in no time. We just need-”   
“One more score, I know”, Arthur interrupts, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I just-” he sighs, “Never mind.” 

“What?” Dutch says, and Arthur can hear that he’s getting angry, he’s not used to Arthur not agreeing with him. 

“We shouldn’t be doin’ scores no more, with the Pinkertons on our trail.” 

“You were the one putting us at risk by causing all that ruckus at Sisika, even when I told you to wait.” 

An there it is again, he thinks. The resentment in his voice. Arthur wonders how much of it that is because of Arthur going against orders, and how much it was because Dutch no longer was someone John looked up to. Dutch wanted to be the one to save John, or have no one save him at all, he didn’t want John to feel indebted to Arthur, there was no place for dual loyalties in the gang even if Arthurs loyalty always would lie with Dutch. 

For a man who looked down upon a moneylender like Strauss, Dutch seemed to love to collect debts on his own. 

He knows he should try to divert the discussion elsewhere, but the anger he felt towards Dutch for not going into action as soon as they knew were John was takes over. 

“And I've told you before, they was gonna hang him, Dutch! Robbing a train however? Now that’s just foolish.” 

“Why are you behaving like this?” Dutch snaps. “Always second guessing me, don’t you trust me no more, son?” 

It’s just that, he doesn’t trust Dutch’s judgement anymore. It’s clouded from all their losses, from Hosea not being there to guide him no more, and from Micah egging on his increasingly foolish ideas. 

“You know I’ll always be loyal to you Dutch,” he says instead. “It’s Micah I don’t trust, something’s off with that man.” 

This somehow makes Dutch laugh. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re jealous, Arthur?” he says in that patronizing way Arthur always hated. He scowls. Dutch somehow always managed to make him feel small, like he still was the street rat he and Hosea had picked up off the street, a good fighter but never smart enough to know what to fight for. He loves Dutch with all his heart, at times unhealthily so, but sometimes he wondered if Dutch truly deserved all that. 

“Forget about it,” he mutters, and makes an attempt to get up, but Dutch’s hand forces him down on the bed again and Dutch takes a kneeling position in front of him. Dutch softly strokes his cheek with his left hand. 

“You know you always been my favorite, son,” he almost coos, and again Arthur just feel patronized, the way Dutch trying to placate him doing nothing more than to make him even more frustrated. 

Dutch hand glides up his leg, his thumb gently massaging the inside of his thigh. “Let’s let off some steam, you seem to need it. God knows it’s been awhile.”   
Ah, so that’s the real reason Dutch had requested him tonight. He really should have known. 

“No,” he says and pushes Dutch’s hand away. “I’m not in the mood for this tonight, Dutch.” 

Dutch stills. “What do you mean, ‘no’?” 

“I’m sayin’ I don’t want to do this now.” 

“Don’t play coy, son”, Dutch scoffs, “Like we ain’t done this before.” 

“I said _no_ ,” he snaps when Dutch’s hands once more descend upon him, pulling at the buttons of his shirt, “You goddamn deaf or something?” 

Dutch lets go of him and takes a step back and all Arthur can think is _finally he listened,_ that’s until he sees the look on Dutch’s face, it’s downright frightening. 

He doesn’t have the time to brace himself. 

Dutch slaps him with the back of his hand with more force than he thought Dutch was capable of, and the rings must have broken through his skin judging by how terrible it stings. Distracted by the throbbing of the right side of his face he barely notices Dutch wrapping his hand around his throat and pushing him down against the mattress. 

He _should_ hit Dutch, should push him off and get up on his feet again but he can’t find it in himself to raise his hand against the man that raised him, Dutch already believes him to be disloyal. 

Hurting him? Well, that would just be a nail in the coffin. 

And again, he should have known that this was something Dutch wanted when called him into the tent. He lead him on, in a way he was just as much at fault as Dutch. 

  
Dutch grip tightens around his throat as a warning, and Arthur forces himself to be still, to be obedient and forces himself not to flinch away when Dutch leans down to kiss him, forces himself not to gag as he feels Dutch’s other hand undo his belt buckle. 

Of all the vile things Dutch had done, in all the ways he’d changed, Arthur still couldn’t believe this was something Dutch was capable off. 

He tries to think of the good old days, back when it was just Hosea, Dutch and him. When Dutch had been a mentor and occasionally a lover, not _this,_ he desperately tries to think of anything other than Dutch peeling off his pants. He remembers aching for Dutch’s touch back in Shady Belle after the Mayors party, back when everything had felt just a tiny bit easier and Hosea still had been alive, back when he still could breathe without feeling like dying. 

“Dutch,” he tries again, because he knows that there is no coming back from this, he doesn’t want this on Dutch’s conscience, he clings to the hope that Dutch can snap out of it, that their bond can be salvaged in some way. It dies when Dutch’s hand covers his mouth. 

“ _Shut up_ Arthur”, Dutch hisses. 

It feels like he’s being torn apart when Dutch pushes in dry, and he can’t help to let out a guttural moan of pain, dampened by Dutch’s hand. He bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from screaming as Dutch begin to move, because he sure as hell don’t want anyone from the camp hearing them, as much for his own pride's sake as for Dutch’s safety, because if someone like Sadie or Charles, or hell, even John, would know of this there is no doubt they would put a bullet into him. 

And Dutch is right, they have done this before, no reason to put up a fuss now just because he didn’t feel like it. Perhaps he was the unreasonable one, trying to deny Dutch the comfort he needed after all that had happened to them the last weeks. He will always owe his life to Dutch, and just perhaps he owes him this too.   
He’s still nauseous though, listening to the slapping of skin, to Dutch’s gasps above him. Tries to ignore the way Dutch places kisses on his jaw and wonders how something he used to love so much can make him want to peel his skin off and make him feel disgusting in ways he never felt before.   
  
“Almost there, son,” Dutch breathes into his ear and he wants to puke. Wants to cry. Perhaps he will do both back into his own tent once Dutch is done with him. 

Dutch quickens his pace. He smells copper in the air and feels a wetness between his thighs. The hand is back around his throat and this time the grip is tight, painfully so, panics as he realizes that he can’t breathe, it’s by pure instinct he grabs Dutch’s wrist with one hand and pushes against his chest with the other in an attempt to shove him away, or at least make him lessen the grip around his throat, let him _breathe_ but instead it just tightens until it literally feels like his neck is about to snap. 

He almost blacks out before Dutch finally removes his hand and climaxes in him, coming in spurts, burning his insides and spilling between his legs as he pulls out his softening cock. Arthur gasps for air, barely hear Dutch’s own panting over the ringing in his ears. 

and he don’t have the time to steady himself before he starts to cough, his whole body racks with them and each cough sends a wave of pain along his backside, the pain worsening when Dutch maneuvers him into a sitting position, “What the hell is wrong with you?” he hears Dutch, his voice sounding distant and the question feels so absurd coming from Dutch, _absolutely absurd_ that he can’t help it. He laughs, a wheezing broken laugh between the coughs.   
  
_“_ Arthur _, breathe!”_

His vision swims before him, he hears Dutch call out for someone. 

He’s still laughing when he blacks out. 


End file.
